Real Estate Flashcards
44 terms the exam actually tests. Flip the card, grade yourself honestly, and the deck comes back with only the ones you missed, which is the whole reason flashcards beat re-reading.
How to drill vocabulary without wasting time
- Run the deck cold once. Do not stop to study. You are sorting cards into known and unknown, not learning yet.
- Review only the missed pile. Re-running cards you already know feels productive and teaches you nothing.
- Move to questions. Recognising a definition is easier than answering a scenario about it. The exam does the second.
Vocabulary questions, the way the exam asks them
Every question above with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Read the explanations for the ones you answered correctly too. A lucky guess and knowing the rule look identical on a score report. These are sample questions from our larger bank.
1. A property owner dies without a will, and the probate court's search locates no heirs. What happens to the property?
Why: With no will and no heirs, the property escheats to the state. Eminent domain is a taking for public use with compensation — a different power entirely.
2. Escheat exists primarily to ensure that:
Why: The purpose of escheat is that property is never ownerless — someone must always hold title, even if that someone ends up being the state.
3. Which of the following is NOT one of the four government powers over real estate?
Why: The four powers are Police power, Eminent domain, Taxation and Escheat (PETE). Novation is a contract concept — substituting a new party or agreement.
4. A buyer purchases a parcel that benefits from a recorded easement across the neighboring lot. The deed does not mention the easement. What happens to it at closing?
Why: An easement appurtenant runs with the land, so it passes automatically on conveyance whether or not the deed names it. That is what makes it an appurtenance rather than a personal right.
5. Which of the following is NOT an appurtenance?
Why: An easement in gross benefits a person or company, not a parcel, so it has no dominant tenement and does not run with the land. The other three attach to the land itself.
6. The phrase "runs with the land" means that a right or obligation:
Why: A covenant or easement that runs with the land binds and benefits every successive owner. It is tied to the parcel, not to the person who happened to own it when the right was created.
7. A seller installs a chandelier she bought at auction, wiring it permanently into the ceiling. At closing, absent any agreement, the chandelier is:
Why: Permanent annexation converts chattel into a fixture, and fixtures convey with the real property. If the seller wanted to keep it, she needed to exclude it in the contract or remove it before closing.
8. Which document transfers ownership of chattel?
Why: Chattel is personal property and transfers by bill of sale. Deeds convey real property only — using one for a refrigerator would transfer nothing.
9. A restaurant tenant bolts a commercial pizza oven to the floor of the leased space. At the end of the lease the oven is:
Why: Trade fixtures are the exception to the annexation rule: equipment a tenant installs to conduct business stays personal property and may be removed, provided the tenant repairs any damage and removes it before the lease ends.
10. Which set of elements must a claimant prove to acquire title by adverse possession?
Why: All six elements must run together for the full statutory period. "Hostile" means without the owner’s permission — permissive use can never ripen into adverse possession.
11. A neighbor has crossed the same strip of land daily for the full statutory period, openly and without permission, but has never occupied or fenced it. He most likely acquires:
Why: Use without possession gains a prescriptive easement — the right to keep using the strip. Title stays with the owner. Adverse possession requires actual, exclusive possession, not merely crossing.
12. After the statutory period runs, an adverse possessor typically must still:
Why: The claim arises by operation of law, but nothing on record shows it. A quiet-title action produces a court judgment that makes the title marketable and insurable.